Ruffling attachment for a sewing machine



March 29, 1955 J. J. BRowNsTEIN RUFFLING ATTACHMENT FOR A SEWING MACHINE Filed Jan. 2, 1953 FIG.

l' ,II 'Il III FIG FIG. 6.

FIG. 2.

FIG. 9.

|NvENToR JEROME J. BROWNSTEIN TIG ATTORNEYS United States Patent O RUFFLING ATTACHMENT FOR A SEWING MACHINE Jerome J. Brownstein, Los Angeles, Calif., assignor to Jean Roberts of California, a corporation of California Application January 2, 1953, Serial No. 329,270

7 Claims. (Cl. 112-134) This invention has to do with the art of sewing machines and relates more particularly to ruilling attachments for sewing machines.

An old difficulty in ruilling such items, for instance, as curtains, drapes or Valances, where the article is to be embellished, for instance, with a tape of a different c olor or design, has been that it has been found impossible, in a single ruilling operation, to provide rules in both the tape and the fabric to which it is attached, for the reason that during the milling operation the tape will simply slide over the surface of the bottom sheet with the result that in the end product only the tape is rullled while the bottom sheet remains unruflled. Products produced by conventional means are illustrated, by way of example, by Figs. and 6 of the attached drawings.

It is an object of my invention to provide a ruiling method and an attachment for a conventional sewing machine which enables superimposed sheets to be rutlled simultaneously and in a single ruilling operation.

The novel features which I believe to characterize my invention will be pointed out in the appended claims and will be best understood from the following description of presently preferred embodiments thereof, for which purpose I shall refer to the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. l is a perspective fragmentary view of a conventional sewing machine;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmentary perspective showing my attachment;

3 is an enlarged section taken on line 3-3 of 1g.

Fig. 4 is a section taken on line 4-4 of Fig. 3;

Fig. 5 is a top plan view of a product ruffled by conventional sewing machines;

Fig. 6 is a section taken on line 6-6 of Fig. 5;

Fig. 7 is a top plan view of a product ruilled by use of my attachment;

Fig. 8 is a section taken on line 8 8 of Fig. 7; and

Fig. 9 is a view like Fig. 3 but illustrating a modified form of the invention.

In general, I accomplish the aims of my invention by providing a rullling blade and a ruilling base member, both of which are substantially wider than the tape or top sheet being stitched to a bottom sheet, and by providing said members with opposed, coplanar work-engaging surfaces one of which surfaces is interrupted by a recess substantially of the width of the tape or narrower sheet, all as will be hereinafter more particularly pointed out.

Referring now to the drawings: In Fig. 1 I show a conventional sewing machine head having a vertically moving pressure foot 15, a needle bar 17, needles 18, throat plate 19 and a bed 20. The head carries an oscillating shaft 22 to which is secured a crank 23, and l show a conventional ruilling plate 25 pivotally mounted at one end to the free end portion of the crank and being urged downwardly at its free end as by a leaf spring 27. A conventional slide plate 30 s slidably carried by the throat plate and a conventional rutlling base member 31 is carried by the slide plate in position to terminate beneath the forward end portion of the pressure foot. I show a bottom fabric sheet F being stitched in the machine, on which a relatively narrow tape or top sheet T is superimposed in position to be stitched thereto.

In my invention I utilize a sewing machine structure such as described, or an equivalent structure, except that, in one embodiment of my invention, I substitute for the 2,704,985 Patented Mar. 29, 1955 ruling blade 25 a relatively wider ruilling blade 25a (Figs. 2-4)-that is, a ruilling blade which is wider than the tape T, so that the leading edge of the ruilling blade will engage the bottom sheet F at each side of the tape T. Also, in this embodiment, I substitute for the ruling base member 31 a modified member 31a which will now be described.

As best shown in Figs. 2-4, the ruilling base member 31a comprises a plate 40 which has an upwardly and forwardly bent medial transverse portion 42 and planar end portions 43, 44. The forward end portion 44 is secured, as by screws 46, to a bottom rectangular spacer block 47, which screws also secure member 31a to the slide plate, while the rear portion 43 rests llatly partly against the slide plate and partly against lthe throat plate, the latter portion terminating beneath the upturned portion 15a of the pressure foot.

At each side of the rear portion 43 I secure to the top surface, as by a suitable adhesive, a spacer plate or strip 50, which spacer plates are spaced apart substantially the width of the tape T. The spacer plates 50 may, in practice, take the form of plastic strips and their top surfaces are coplanar.

It will be observed that the rutlling blade is wide enough so that, at and adjacent its respective sides, its free end or leading edge bears against the spacer plates 50, the intervening planar portion 43a of surface 43 being spaced from the leading edge of the ruilling blade by the spacer plates 50.

By virtue of -this construction of the ruilling blade 25a and the ruling base member 31a, I am able to obtain the following operation; As the sheet F and tape T, in

superimposed relation, are fed through the machine between the ruilling blade and the ruilling base member, and of course beneath the pressure foot and needle bar, the oscillation of the shaft 22 causes the crank 23 to alternately drag the free end edge of the ruilling blade away from the pressure foot and then to push it in the opposite direction towards the pressure foot, during which latter movement the rullle is formed. Inasmuch as, by virtue of the spacers 50, compensation is made for the extent to which the tape would normally space the leading edge of the ruilling blade from the sheet F beyond the side edges of the tape, on each latter movement of the rutlling blade the medial portion of its free end edge engages the tape T and forms a tuck or rutlle therein while the outer portions of said edge engage the sheet F beyond the respective sides of the tape and form a tuck or ruille therein in conformity with the ruflle in the tape, as best shown in Fig. 8; and as this rutlling operation is completed the needles 18 move downwardly to stitch the sheets together in their said ruilled condition. The different stages of said ruling operation are best illustrated in Fig. 4 wherein, in its full line position, the ruling blade is shown as about to commence its movement `to the left and, in the broken line position, the blade is shown at the end of the operation in which the rules R have been completed.

From the foregoing it will be seen that both the bottom sheet and the tape have been simultaneously ruilled in the same operation.

In the embodiment of Fig. 9 I show a modified construction for accomplishing the same purpose. Here, instead of providing the ruilling base member with the spacer plates 50, as before described, I make the rear end portion of the ruilling base member planar throughout its width, as shown at 45a in Fig. 9, and provide a recess 60 in the ruilling blade 25b, the width of the recess being substantially the same as the width of the tape T and the depth of the recess being substantially the same as the thickness of the tape T.

In operation of this modified form of the invention, as that portion of the edge of the ruilling blade which forms the bottom of recess 60 forms each rule in the tape T, the adjoining coplanar edge surfaces 65 of the ruflling blade, at each side of the recess, engage and form a like mille in the bottom sheet F.

I claim:

1. In a sewing machine adapted-to sew a relatively narrow tape to an underlying relatively wide sheet and having rutlling blade actuating means, a rutlling attach.

ment comprising a ruiing blade adapted to be attached to said means and presenting a work-engaging edge surface of a length greater than the width of said tape, and a ruiling base member presenting a work-engaging surface opposed to said edge surface, one of said surfaces being interrupted by a recess having a width substantially equal to the width of said tape and having a depth substantially equal to the thickness of said tape.

2. In a sewing machine adapted to sew a relatively narrow tape to an underlying relatively wide sheet and having ruffling blade actuating means, a rufing attachment comprising a ruffling blade adapted to be attached to said means and presenting a work-engaging surface of a length greater than the width of said tape, and a ruling base member adapted to be mounted beneath said blade in position to be engageable thereby, said member presenting at and adjacent its respective sides coplanar workengaging surfaces and an intervening planar work-engaging surface of a width substantially equal to the width of said tape, said latter surface being in a plane spaced below the plane of said coplanar surfaces a distance substantially equal to the thickness of said tape.

3. In a sewing machine adapted to sew a relatively narrow tape to an underlying relatively wide sheet and having ruffling blade actuating means, a rutliing attachment comprising, in combination with a ruifling base member presenting a work-engaging surface, a rufing blade adapted to be secured to said actuating means above said base member, said blade presenting transversely spaced coplanar work-engaging edge surfaces and an intervening work-engaging edge surface of a length substantially equal to the width of said tape and disposed in a plane spaced above the plane of said coplanar surfaces a distance substantially equal to the thickness of said tape.

4. In a sewing machine adapted to sew a relatively narrow exible sheet to an underlying relatively wide flexible sheet and having ruiing blade actuating means, a rufing blade member adapted to be attached to said actuating means, a rufing base member adapted to be secured in position on said machine opposed to said ruling blade member, each of said membershaving a work-engaging surface of a length greater than the width of said relatively narrow sheet, and means associated with one of said members to cause the end portions of its work-engaging surface to be in a plane parallel with and spaced from the intermediate portion of its work-engaging surface a distance substantially equal to the thickness of said relatively narrow sheet.

5. An attachment for a sewing machine adapted to ruffle and sew together two superimposed sheets of different widths, comprising a ruing base member presenting a rear planar surface and a front planar surface disposed in a plane above that of said rear surface, and a pair of spacer plates each.being of a thickness substantially equal to the thickness of the narrower of said sheets, said spacer plates being spaced apart transversely of said rear planar surface a distance substantially equal to the width of said narrower sheet, and a relatively movable rufing blade presenting an end edge surface opposed and being of a length at least equal to the width of said rear planar surface.

6. The method of producing a ruffled article between a ruffling blade member and a rufing base member, comprising superimposing a relatively narrow flexible sheet upon a relatively wide exible sheet in a manner to expose a portion of the latter sheet at each side of the relatively narrow sheet and simultaneously moving one portion of the rufiiing blade member against the top surface of the relatively narrow sheet while moving other portions of said rufing blade member against said exposed portions of the other sheet.

7. The method of producing a rufed article between a rufing blade member and a rufing base member, comprising superimposing a relatively narrow flexible sheet upon a relatively wide exible sheet in a manner to expose a portion of the latter sheet at each side of the relatively narrow shect and simultaneouslymoving one portion of the ruiing blade member against the top surface of the relatively narrow sheet while moving other portions of said ruiing blade member against said exposed portions of the other sheet, and maintaining a relatively greater clearance between said members throughout the width of said relatively narrow sheet during said movement of said milling blade member.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,277,722 Seaman Mar. 31, 1942 

